Lichens

Even lichen mocked his heart
with riot on the local stone;
less resigned to life apart,
the rock itself was less alone.

Long estrangement turned him cold,
dry as leaves beneath his shoes,
a man impatient to be old,
a man with only time to lose.

But then a sudden summer came:
the sun’s trumpets blew a storm
that shook his self-sufficient frame,
left him living, left him warm.

Love, it was. Summer? Her eyes,
her spirit welcoming and wide,
and joy, and infinite surprise,
when she agreed to be his bride.

But summer is a funny thing;
summer warms, and then it burns,
and then the waning season brings
a morning when the weather turns.

Within her was a shuttered room,
protected from the light and air,
and deep in the abiding gloom
he found another living there.

He wasted no reproachful tears,
never spoke of what he knew,
but tended through relentless years
the lovely lichens, green and blue.